Profitable Growth Strategies: Why I Recommend This Business Growth Training

by Paul Simister on March 18, 2013

I want to take this opportunity to explain why I recommend Profitable Growth Strategies as the business growth training for small business owners.

The Business Problem I Saw

Ever since I was a trainee accountant in the early 1980s, I’ve been concerned at the struggle many small business owners have to earn an income that comes close to what they deserve.

I was able to see behind the bluster (“things are going great and we’re really busy”) and the trappings of success (the new BMW that was leased not owned) to what was really happening and it was quite an eye-opener.

Small Business Failure Statistics And The Bigger Problem Of Under-Performance

There’s a lot of exaggerated claims made by people who want to sell services to small business about the risk of failure. You may have seen claims like “50% of small businesses fail within two years” or “90% fail before they are five years old”.

Is a failure a business that goes bankrupt costing creditors money and where the business owner loses everything?

Or is it one where the owner quietly closes it and pays off everyone else?

From what I saw as a young man and what I’ve seen since, the number of small businesses that fail in a formal sense or are closed by a disappointed owner are often dwarfed by the number of businesses that provide little more than a subsistence income.

I’ve seen businesses where the owner works 60 hours plus a week and with their house on the line with the bank, earns less than the lowest paid employee who has no commitment to the business.

That can’t be right.

And especially when the businesses are often ignoring significant opportunities and instead focusing on doing the wrong things, often in the wrong way.

The Need For Business Training

The world of education is letting down its citizens by not teaching young people more about finance and the dangers of spending more than you earn.

That’s only a starter.

A business owner needs to know much more.

The Entrepreneurial Myth

Author Michael Gerber became famous for writing his book The E Myth which tells the story of many business owners.

Most start as employees of other businesses and learn the trade.

They are printers, bar staff, chefs, plumbers, architects … (and every other trade and profession you can think of).

And they do a good job and feel they are not getting fully rewarded.

They see the business owner and believe he or she is reaping high profits.

So they decide to start their own business.

And then the problems begin.

They are still good at their trade.

But they don’t know how to build a business.

So the business that was meant to deliver the dream becomes a long term struggle.

Sometimes it ends in business failure. More often the business owners is sucked into a long commitment of long hours for too little money.

There Has To Be A Better Way

The success of some small businesses shows that there has to be a better way.

Sometimes the business owner is in the right place at the right time. He gets lucky.

But sometimes the business owner does the right things in the right way.

You can’t rely on luck.

You can rely on doing the right things.

Traditional Business Training Is Expensive

If you’ve bought business training that’s delivered in a classroom environment, you’ll know that good training is expensive.

As a chartered accountant, I have to have continued professional development.

In the mid 1990s I started my MBA course because I was tired of paying £400 for a one day course, and if it was in London, another £100 or so for the travel and subsistence.

It turns out that was cheap.

Jay Abraham is an extraordinarily successful marketing consultant in America who built his reputation selling short 3 to 5 days courses for $5,000. Then $10,000. I think it’s got as high as $25,000.

Other people have followed him into charging amazing price for short courses.

Information Overload On The Internet

Of course you don’t have to pay to get business training.

there is plenty of stuff available for free on the Internet.

The problem is sorting out the good from the bad.

There is plenty of bad I can tell you.

And then there’s the problem that even when you find a quality website like this one, the information that’s given for free is often a teaser for the paid stuff.

It goes part of the way there but it rarely answers the specific issue of what you should do in your specific circumstances at this specific time.

To be useful to everyone it has to be more general in nature.

Then Business Growth Coaching Is The Answer

Yes it is if you can afford it.

There’s no substitute to working with the right business coach who is happy to support you in getting from where you are to where you want to be.

Unfortunately there are wrong coaches who don’t know as much as they claim and there are great coaches who are right for some people but may be entirely wrong for you.

I know I work very well with some people but the chemistry isn’t right for others.

But coaching has a huge problem.

It is very expensive.

And many coaches expect payment upfront before they’ve helped you and don’t offer any kind of money back guarantee on results or satisfaction.

In 2008 I Saw The Future

In early 2008 I saw a coaching course promoted in a product launch on the Internet although I missed all the build up.